旅行的艺术:旅行中的特定场所-6

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黄昏时分，汽车沿着盘旋的公路穿行于大片森林之中。车头灯的强光，不时射在路旁大片的草地和路旁的树干上，以至于每块树皮和每根草茎的形貌都清晰可辨。在森林里，车灯的光线惨白、强烈，似乎更适用于医院病房。汽车绕过弯，车灯照在似在昏睡的路面上，这些草地和树干又没入一片黑暗中。

As the car slips along a winding road through the woods at dusk, its powerful headlamps momentarily light up whole sections of meadow and tree trunks, so brightly that the texture of the bark and individual stalks of grass can be made out in a clinical white light better suited to a hospital ward than woodland, and then dip them back into the undifferentiated murkiness as the car rounds the corner and the beams turn their attention to another patch of slumbering ground.

一路上很少见到别的车辆，偶尔碰到的，也是迎面来的，亮着车灯，像是在逃离其身后夜的黑暗。车内昏暗，仪表板发出紫色的光。突然，在前方一块空阔地上出现一片亮光——是一个加油站。这是这条公路驶入这最茂密也是最大的一片森林之前的最后一个加油站，再往前方，一切都将落入黑夜的掌心——这就是油画《加油站》所表现的场景。加油站的管理员离开了房间，在油泵前检查汽油存量。房间内温暖明亮，灯光强烈，一如正午的煦阳正撒满室外的大院。室内也许还有一只收音机在开着。管理室靠墙处，除了有糖点、杂志、地图和车用窗帘，也许还整齐地摆着一排油桶。

There are few other cars on the road, only an occasional set of lights moving in the opposite direction, away from the night. The car's instrument panel casts a purple glow over the darkened interior. Suddenly, in a clearing ahead, a floodlit expanse appears: a petrol station, the last before the road heads off into the longest, densest stretch of forest and night completes its hold over the land-Gas (1940). The manager has left his cabin to check the level on a pump. It is warm inside and light as brilliant as that of the midday sun washes across the forecourt. A radio may be playing. There may be cans of oil neatly lined up against one wall, along with sweets, magazines, maps and window cloths.

和十三年前创作的《自动贩卖店》一样，《加油站》表现的也是一种孤独：一座加油站独立于越来越浓的暮色中。在霍珀的画笔下，这种孤独同样呈现得强烈深刻且令人神往。画布右边像雾一样开始蔓延的黑暗同加油站形成鲜明对照，黑暗是恐惧的信使，而加油站是安全的象征。夜幕降临之际，在这处在原始森林边缘的人类最后的一个驻足点，应该比白天的城市更容易让人生出亲近的感觉。咖啡机和杂志，作为人类小小的欲望和虚荣的象征，对应着加油站外宽阔无垠的非人类的世界和绵亘数英里的森林，而在这森林里，不时还可以听见熊和狐狸脚下树枝的断裂声。画作给人的暗示可谓意味深长：在一份杂志的封面上，用鲜亮的粉红色突出着今年夏天流行紫色指甲油的信息；咖啡机对我们发出无声的呼唤：正在播散新鲜烘焙的咖啡豆的芳香。在这公路即将进入无边森林的最后一站，我们会发现自己同他人之间的共通性远远超出差异性。

Like Automat , painted thirteen years before it, Gas is a picture of isolation. A petrol station stands on its own in the impending darkness. But in Hopper's hands, the isolation is once again made poignant and enticing. The darkness that spreads like a fog from the right of the canvas, a harbinger of fear, contrasts with the security of the station. Against the backdrop of night and wild woods, in this last outpost of humanity, a sense of kinship may be easier to develop than in daylight in the city. The coffee machine and magazines, tokens of small human desires and vanities, stand in opposition to the wide non-human world outside, to the miles of forest in which branches crack occasionally under the footfall of bears and foxes. There is something touching in the suggestion-made in bold pink on the cover of one magazine-that we paint our nails purple this summer and in the invocation above the coffee machine to sample the aroma of freshly roasted beans. In this last stop before the road enters the endless forest, it is what we have in common with others that looms larger than what separates us.

爱德华·霍珀：《加油站》，1940年